fistula thus established is not afterward painful, though there may be some discomfort now and again.
The classical instance is the case of Alexis St Martin, who was shot in the stomach in 1822, and recovered, but with a fistula. He let Dr Beaumont make experiments on him for nine years: “During the whole of these periods, from the spring of 1824 to the present time (1833), he has enjoyed general good health … active, athletic and vigorous; exercising, eating and drinking like other healthy and active people. For the last four months he has been unusually plethoric and robust, though constantly subjected to a continuous series of experiments on the interior of the stomach; allowing to be introduced or taken out at the aperture different kinds of food, drinks, elastic catheters, thermometer tubes, gastric juice, chyme, &c., almost daily, and sometimes hourly. Such have been this man's condition and circumstances for several years past; and he now enjoys the most perfect health and constitutional soundness, with every function of the system in full force and vigour” (Beaumont, Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, 1838).
We come now to the question, What anaesthetics are used in these experiments, and are they properly administered? The anaesthetics used are—(1) chloroform, ether, or a mixture containing chloroform and ether; (2) morphia, chloral, urethane. It is sometimes said that morphia is not an anaesthetic. That depends on the quantity given. Not a month passes in this country without somebody killing himself or herself with morphia or chloral. They die profoundly anesthetized: they cannot be roused; even the pain of a strong electric shock is not enough to rouse them. So it is with animals. The doses given to them are enormous and produce complete insensibility. On this point the evidence given before the Royal Commission of 1906-8 by Mr Thane, Professor Schäfer, Sir Lauder Brunton, Sir Henry Morris, Professor Dixon, Dr Dudley Buxton and Professor Starling is absolutely conclusive. “As to the statements,” says Sir Lauder Brunton, “that chloral and opium or morphia are not narcotics, and do not remove pain, there is no other word for it, it is simply a lie; you may as well say that chloroform does not remove pain. If you give any animal a sufficiently large dose of chloral or opium, you so completely abolish sensibility that there is nothing you can do that will awaken its sensibility. The animal is as senseless as a piece of board.”
With regard to chloroform, ether and the A.C.E. mixture (alcohol, chloroform and ether) it is absolutely certain that animals can be kept, with these anaesthetics, profoundly unconscious for three or four or more hours. Nothing on this point is more worthy of consideration than the evidence in veterinary surgery, given before the Royal Commission by Mr Hobday, one of the very foremost veterinary surgeons in this country (Reports of Evidence, vol. iv. Q. 16284-16523). The opponents of all experiments on animals are apt to believe that dogs and cats must be bound and fastened on boards, and then have the anaesthetic given to them. That is not the case. They can take the anaesthetic first, and then be put in position; just as we, for many of the operations of surgery, are bound in position. And, of course, dogs and cats cannot lie on their backs as we can. “The usual thing we do,” said Professor Starling, in his evidence before the Royal Commission, “is to give the animal, half an hour before the experiment, a hypodermic injection of morphia, of about a quarter of a grain—from a quarter to a third. The effect of that is, that the dog becomes sleepy and stupid, and then sometimes it will he down quietly, and if it is very sleepy you can put a mask over its nose containing the chloroform, alcohol and ether mixture, which it takes quite quietly. If, at the time one wants to begin the operation, the animal is not fully under the influence of morphia—if it still seems restless—it is put in a box, and there it has some wool saturated with the A.C.E. mixture put in the box. The air gradually gets saturated, the dog gets more and more sleepy, and finally subsides at the bottom of the box.”
A few words must be said here about curare. It was said, some years ago, by an opponent of experiments on animals, that “curare is used daily throughout England,” whereas, it is seldom used at all, and is never used alone in any sort or kind of operation on any animal in this country: in every, such case a recognized anaesthetic must be given, and is given. In large doses curare not only abolishes the movement of the voluntary muscles, but also acts as an anaesthetic: in small doses it acts only on the voluntary muscles, i.e. on the endings of the motor nerves going to these muscles. For example, suppose that the object of the experiment is to observe and record the action of a nerve on the contraction of certain blood vessels. The nerve gives off some branches to muscles, and other branches to blood vessels. If the animal be anesthetized, and the nerve stimulated, muscles and vessels will both contract; but, if curare be given, as well as an anaesthetic, the vessels alone will contract, without the muscles: for curare does not act on the endings of motor nerves going to blood vessels. But, as a practical matter, curare is very hard to obtain, and is often impure, and is very seldom used. One of the inspectors said to the Royal Commission that he had once seen it used, fifteen years ago. Professor Gotch said that he had not used it, in his own work, for twenty years. Professor Schäfer said that he had not used it for years. And Sir Lauder Brunton said that he did not think he had used it at all since the passing of the act of 1876. The fear that, in a case where curare was being used, the effect of the anaesthetic might “pass off,” and the animal be left under curare alone, is not reasonable. The dosage and administration of anaesthetics is not left to chance. If, for example, an animal is receiving a definite percentage of chloroform vapour, it is of necessity under the influence of the chloroform: and the anaesthesia will gradually become not less but more profound. (See the evidence given before the Royal Commission by Professor Langley and Professor Waller.)
It may be interesting to compare the pain, or death, or discomfort among 86,277 animals used for experiments in Great Britain in 1909, with the pain, or death, or discomfort of an equal number of the same kinds of animals, either in a state of nature, or kept for sport, or used for the service of human profit or amusement. But it would be outside the purpose of this article to describe the cruelties which are inseparable from sport, and from the killing of animals for food, and from fashion; neither is this the place to describe the millions of mutilations which are practised on domestic animals by farmers and breeders. As one of the Royal Commissioners recently said, the farmyards, at certain times of the year, simply “seethe with vivisection.” The number of animals wounded in sport, or in traps, cannot be guessed. Against this vast amount of suffering we have to put an estimate of the condition of 86,277 animals used for medical science. Ninety-five per cent. of them were used for inoculation. In many of these inoculations the result was negative: the animal did not take any disease, and thus did not suffer any pain. In many more, e.g. cancer in mice, tubercle in guinea-pigs, the pain or discomfort, if any, may fairly be called trivial or inconsiderable. It could hardly be said that these small animals suffer much more than an equal number of the same kind of animals kept in little cages to amuse children. There remain 3888 animals which were submitted to operation under an anaesthetic. In the greater number of these cases the animal was killed then and there under the anaesthetic, without recovering consciousness. In the remaining cases the animal was allowed to recover, and to be kept for observation; but no further observation of any kind, which could cause pain, was allowed to be made on it, unless it were again placed under an anaesthetic. Many of these cases, thus allowed to recover after an operation, may fairly be compared to an equal number of domestic animals after one of the formal operations of veterinary surgery. These observations made under Certificate B form but a very small proportion of the total number of experiments on animals in the United Kingdom; and they have led, in recent years, to discoveries of the very utmost importance for human life and health.
II. Scientific Results.—We come now to consider the results of experiments on animals, but we must remember that not we alone, but animals also, owe a great debt to them. Great epizootic diseases like anthrax, swine-fever, chicken cholera, silkworm disease, pleuro-pneumonia, glanders, Texas cattle fever, blackleg, tuberculosis in cattle, have killed yearly millions of animals, and have been brought under better control by these experiments. The advantages that have been obtained for man may be arranged under two heads—(A) Physiology, (B) Pathology, Bacteriology and Therapeutics.
A. Physiology
1. The Blood.—Galen (A.D. 131) confuted the doctrine of Erasistratus, that the arteries contained πνεῦμα, the breath of life, proving
